FISHER, MAN
Man’s adrift at dawn in his blue canoe. His line bobs near the pier. On shore, a stray barks at its long shadow on the sand. Man lolls in half-sleep. Wave-laps lull him. Toward him, a corpse glides, splayed in a black suit. At the bulk of this small dark berg thunking his hull, Man wakes. Out over the side of his boat, Man eyes the pecked translucent blue of the dead man’s face, his stiff hand trailing a ripnet of bright green weeds. From his mouth, minnows spill like prayers. Man shudders at the eyes— bulbous and wide to the sky—but he glows too. This is his life-fish. Wobbling, Man reels, bending to slip bare arms around the corpse, lifts him into the boat. A veil of mist. Man hoists the dripping corpse onto his shoulders. Then drags his catch like some drowned groom onto the beach.
TWO DRIFTERS
Corpse and Man float on their backs
in bed, drifting on sleep's reedy river.
One breathes. A blessing of air,
a breeze enters, caressing the flesh
of dead and living alike. Man dreams—
Corpse sinks in fragments: his torso and limbs
broken stones, ruins strewn
on red sheets. A riverbed. Dreaming, Man
sings: I'm crossing you in style someday.
Corpse floats toward the surface light of
Man's mouth. Wherever you're going,
I'm going your way. For a moment,
they harmonize. Come sunrise,
eyeless, fishpecked: Corpse reassembles and dies.
There's such a lot of world to see. And so to realize
the day: Man wipes his eyes.
SO MANY EMPTY SHOES
Waking with a start, Man stumbles down his dark hall to piss, his house littered with all manner of empty shoes. Whose shoes, whose shoes. Man mutters to himself, falling into a layered heap of loafers, boots, pumps, sneakers, flip-flops. He clambers back across the mountain of shoes to where Corpse lies in his bed, Corpse now Man's father and Man a boy again—frightened by thunder. May I crawl inside with you? Man asks, nudging his father, now Corpse again. Corpse doesn't stir. Man turns, gazing at the floor, where in each lightning flash he sees no shoes, though his feet are sore.
Robert Fanning (he/him/his) is the author of four-full length poetry collections: Severance (Salmon Poetry 2019), Our Sudden Museum, (Salmon Poetry 2017), American Prophet (Marick Press 2009), and The Seed Thieves (Marick Press 2006) as well as two chapbooks, Sheet Music (Three Bee Press 2018) and Old Bright Wheel (The Ledge Press 2002). His poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, The Atlanta Review, The Cortland Review, Rattle, Waxwing, failbetter and many other journals. He lives in Mt. Pleasant, MI.